


The Walk/The Wait

by cfcureton



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), olicity - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-02 18:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10950573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cfcureton/pseuds/cfcureton
Summary: Missing scene from 5x20.As soon as Lyla told the team that Oliver was out of surgery and doing well, Felicity asked if she could see him.





	1. The Walk

"Actually, he asked to see you."

  
Lyla's words hit her so hard Felicity felt a little woozy. She barely registered Curtis' fangirl moment; Oliver had asked to see her, and she was just as anxious to see him.

\--------------------------------------------  
Oddly enough, the whole time Felicity was in the Argus exam room getting her implant re-jigged so her legs would work again the person she couldn't stop thinking about was Billy; about how they were so close to getting justice for him. About how she was so close to being free of him. As Curtis chattered away about the team's rescue attempts during their underground ordeal (and Felicity scarfed two granola bars and a Red Bull to ward off the shakes) she felt lighter than she had in months.

  
That night last summer in the Bunker, the night she gave in to her loneliness and her magnetic attraction to Oliver, was both wonderful and terrifying. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, personified. Standing up and walking out on him the day she broke up with him in the loft hadn't been an attempt to punish him--it was an attempt to save her own heart. She'd come back to the team because leaving him to save the city alone wasn't an option. But that night on the training mat proved that working together without a barrier wasn't an option either.

  
Enter Billy Malone. Newly-unemployed Felicity Smoak had taken to sitting in her favorite coffee shop and working on startup ideas during the day in lieu of spending that time sitting underground in the dark. It was refreshing to be out in plain sight again, unafraid of being ambushed or kidnapped. Surrounding herself with people who were very much alive helped ward off the ghosts of Havenrock that she tended to wear around her like a suffocating blanket down there in the darkness.

  
The day her coffee order accidentally got switched with Billy's it was pouring buckets outside. Every table in the shop was occupied, so after some initial chit chat and a small laugh over the drink mix-up she'd offered to let him sit at her table to wait out the weather.

  
Billy turned out to be super normal. Neither of his parents had ever been murdered by super villains, he wasn't filthy rich, he had a regular job, and at the end of the day his hobby was putting his feet up and binge-watching Netflix. He held his temper, he laughed at her jokes, and he only had a passing interest in sports. As far as good boyfriends went, Billy checked all the boxes.

  
But the best thing he had going for him was that Felicity now had the excuse she needed to keep her hands off Oliver. She knew down to her toes that Oliver would never make a move on her; he had made it clear that she was the one calling the shots, and he had always been a model of self-control, sometimes maddeningly so. Therefore if she had a good reason not to approach him, even a secret one, it was a sure bet that there would never be a repeat of the salmon ladder incident and her poor heart could stay safe.

  
Curtis finally pronounced his work done and helped her roll over on the exam table. The tingling in her legs began almost immediately, and she cried a little with relief. Well, relief and fatigue and worry over Oliver's status in surgery. When she could swing her legs and wiggle her toes to his satisfaction Curtis helped her off the table, hovering over her like a mother hen until she convinced him that she was back to normal. She had to convince him if she wanted a chance to be at Oliver's side when he woke up.

  
She was still filthy and starving and beyond exhausted, but Lyla's pronouncement that Oliver would be fine propelled her down the hall with a need that far surpassed her own physical discomfort. As she walked she let all her mistakes from the past few months wash over her.  
\--------------------------------------------  
She should have known she was in trouble when Curtis asked her what her plans were for her night off and she failed to mention that she had a date. Or that she had recently given that date a key to the loft. The guilt she felt over using Billy to get info out of the SCPD now that Quentin was off the force was compounded by the realization that he was utterly devoted to her, open and honest and sincere. The worst part was the tiny voice in the furthest depths of her soul that said "no" so very, very softly every time she tried to convince herself that she was happy.

  
Unable to reveal her secret or give up using Billy to shield her heart, Felicity began to fervently hope that she would be found out. The night Oliver landed on her balcony her heart dropped and soared at the same time. If he was there to force their talk to finally happen, maybe she could let go of this charade, put all the pieces back together, and set Billy free. But when Oliver told her he didn't care that she was seeing someone, her heart--the heart she'd been working so hard to protect all these months--broke a little under what felt like rejection.

Not long after, when it became clear that she would have to come clean to Billy about how she spent her nights, Felicity felt a thrill of anticipation under the dread; "at last", that tiny voice inside her said. But his instant forgiveness and understanding threw a bucket of cold water on her plans once again, and once again she chose to stay with him and do nothing.

  
Felicity's faith that she had all the time in the world to work all this out, that steadfast Oliver would wait for her forever, was shattered by Susan Williams. It was far from the first relationship Oliver had been in with Felicity as a bystander. She did not even feel animosity towards most of them: She'd never had to see him with Makenna, and her eventual love for Sara balanced out any jealously she'd felt. Laurel's love story with him had always been untouchable to her; too sacred to resent, and too doomed to failure to fear. (Helena she allowed herself to hate; that bitch had zip tied her under her own desk.) No need to even waste time thinking about Isabel.

  
But all those women represented BEFORE. Before his declaration of love to her for Slade's benefit, before the first date blown to hell, before Nanda Parbat and Ivy Town. Susan Williams was after. Any hope Felicity still had that she could fix this, restore her equilibrium and move forward with the man she loved, was dashed.

  
Which is where she was the night Oliver walked off the elevator and broken-heartedly confessed that Billy was dead. That he had killed her boyfriend. At that moment Felicity's tears were for Oliver's pain, and out of shame that Billy was dead, not because of Oliver or Prometheus, but because of her.

  
After that there was no point in hoping that Oliver and Susan wouldn't become a thing, because Felicity no longer deserved the love she wanted from him. So she turned the guilt and the shame and the rage into a desire for revenge so strong she swore her soul must be black.

Dig saw her pain but misdiagnosed it. Rory, with his old soul, saw everything, more than he probably understood, but he left before he could sufficiently raise the alarm to Oliver.  
\--------------------------------------------  
So now finally--finally--on legs that still tingled and threatened to buckle and give away her precarious condition to her ever-watchful team, Felicity felt the pieces falling into place. Oliver's confession in the steam tunnel had given her the answers she always needed but had failed to get out of him the summer before, and nearly losing him twice during their latest escape was the last push she needed to open up and come clean. To tell him that she understood the decisions he had been forced to make over the years; not always good decisions, but made with the most noble of intentions.

  
She was overcome one last time with uncertainty as she pushed through the door, but he lifted his head and opened his eyes as she entered the room and that small, soft voice deep in her soul whispered, "always".


	2. The Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Oliver awoke from surgery, his first thought was of Felicity.

Oliver felt like he'd been hit by a truck. The muscles in his legs and back were strained, his arms and shoulders screaming. The middle of his chest was incredibly sore from the adrenaline shot; Felicity Smoak did not mess around with resuscitation. His surgery site, the main reason he was waking up in this hospital bed, was probably at the bottom of the list of things that hurt at the moment, a thought that would've made him chuckle if he didn't know how damn much that would hurt.

  
Lyla had already been in to check on him. She told him that they'd set Curtis up with the equipment he needed to try to get Felicity's implant back online; she was headed to see them next. She'd asked him if he needed more pain killer, but he'd flatly refused which made her roll her eyes and sigh in exasperation.

  
Then he'd hesitated and licked his lips--God he was thirsty--and very softly asked to see Felicity, when she was ready. Lyla's enigmatic gaze held him prisoner for a couple of beats, and then she'd smiled softly and told him she'd pass it on.

  
So now he waited.  
\--------------------------------------------  
He thought he was finally going to be able to feel happiness again that night in the Bunker. The wonder of getting a second first time with this woman, his light, his soul...she took his breath away, and then he handed her his heart for good measure. How you could feel whole with so much of yourself given away he would never know.

  
But then before he could even process it--she was always far ahead of him in that regard--Felicity was dressed and gone, and they were back to square one. The next day's talk was only slightly less heart-wrenching, but he promised he wasn't going anywhere and he meant it. He vowed to himself that he would stay, working side-by-side with her but keeping his hands to himself until she was ready to have The Talk.

  
Not that there weren't moments that tempted his patience sorely, like the rare, almost accidental touches she would give him that knocked the wind out of him and froze him in place because he didn't dare respond in kind. Or her constant prodding to rebuild the team; whenever her stubbornness butted up against his he just wanted to grab her and kiss her.

The day he showed off on the salmon ladder in his business suit--he could admit it now--he was taunting her, reminding her about that night, and about her promise to hash it all out with him. He needed that talk to move forward, and he desperately wanted to move forward WITH HER, but if it wasn't to be then he just needed to know.

He did a fine job of concealing it, but Christopher Chance's off-hand remark that Felicity was seeing someone was a kick in the gut the likes of which Oliver hadn't felt since the Dark Archer left him for dead. But in that moment he pushed the shock and betrayal down and away, because if the last ten years had taught him anything it was how to compartmentalize.

Later that day (and from time to time for months after) he would get those feelings out of their box and let them torment him. Allow them to rake their nails over his chest and singe his fingers. 'We didn't get a chance to talk', they whispered incessantly.

  
Despite the chaos around them--the aftermath of Rene's kidnapping and the threat of Tobias Church--his need to confront Felicity drove him to the loft late that night, but not before he crouched on the adjacent rooftop to scope out his former home, on the off chance HE was there.

As Oliver landed on the balcony he was fully prepared to have it out; ask her why she had moved on, without him, without the courtesy of the talk she had promised they would have.

  
But his stupid brain--wired for so long to respond to stress--at the last minute chose to protect his heart, and instead of the speech he'd rehearsed all evening he told her he didn't care that she was seeing someone. And that was the high point of his end of the conversation. When the time came to ask Felicity if what she had with this guy was real he honestly didn't think he could get the words out.

Oliver's bizarre experience in the alien dream world confirmed what he had already known: That Felicity was his beacon, his way home. He longed to describe it to her, to explain how she was the reason the team made it back.

But Prometheus had other plans, and in one horrible moment Billy was dead by his hand and he was left with not only the guilt of one more death on his conscience, but the knowledge that he had to confess his crime to the woman he still loved more than anything. The walk from the elevator to Felicity was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do, and her tears as he confessed were almost more than he could bear.

Oliver never really meant for Susan Williams to be a thing. He was still pissed at Chance for flirting with her while impersonating him as the mayor. She was attractive, and obviously smart, but it was hard to let go of the feeling that her motivations were not entirely pure. And honestly, he had no intention of building a life with someone who wasn't Felicity, even if she would never take him back after what he'd done to Billy.

  
But that trip to Russia scared him. It showed him clearly how easy it was for him to slide back into his life as a soulless killing machine, despite all the work he had done over the years to redeem himself. And worse than that, it showed him how his influence could bring down those closest to him. His own sins he could live with as long as John and Felicity kept their humanity.

  
Oliver was just so tired. So damn tired of being alone, of shielding everyone else by denying himself comfort, and so he turned to Susan. It may have felt good in the moment, but afterwards he felt despicable, like he was betraying a woman who didn't even want him.

And then Susan got handsy with the Bratva tattoo and he knew this had been a big mistake. Oliver Queen had been with plenty of women who only wanted something out of him. He was well aware of the signs. But this time he wasn't a twenty year old with a trust fund and a high functioning libido; the stakes were so much higher now.

The idea that Chase thought he could scare Oliver with torture was laughable. No one could inflict pain on him greater than that which he already inflicted upon himself. Regularly. But Chase's trump card, Felicity's glasses held over him almost delicately, was the first thread that began to unravel his resolve. He knew John Diggle was capable of keeping her safe, but John was not Oliver Queen, and down here, chained to the floor, Oliver Queen was powerless.

  
After six days he returned to the Bunker; broken, defeated, a raw wound of emotion. It felt like he had been turned inside out, and now everyone could plainly see that he was a monster. So when Felicity approached him, radiating concern and fear and rage, he shrank back from her to save what was left of his emotional control. Just looking her in the eye--at those glasses--was too much; he had to turn his face away to gather himself, hold the pieces together long enough to send her away lest he pull her into hell with him.

But Felicity found her own hell--had been there for months, apparently--all on her own. He was still trying to wrap his head around Helix: How it came to be that she could get in so deep with them while under his nose. How that organization fit with Chase, or if they even fit at all. He knew there had been a lot to distract him in the last few months, but how had he missed her pain? Her grief? Her rage?

  
Until it all came out the night Helix and his team collided. The night he knew that once again he had failed to be the man that Felicity needed. And so he had kicked the team out of the Bunker, opened a bottle, and settled in to get good and drunk. A fine plan, before she showed up and their nightmare began.

  
But then he got a miracle: Under the worst of circumstances--trapped, running out of air, her legs useless and him slowly bleeding out--The Talk finally happened. Oliver's soul was freed of its demons (the ones associated with her, anyway), and Felicity finally knew his darkest secret. The fact that she was still with him at the end of their rescue--still touching him, still trusting him, still believing in him--was a good sign.

Now that they were safe he fervently hoped that Felicity would come to him and confirm that there was still a chance.  
\--------------------------------------------  
He had allowed his head to fall back and his eyes to close as he waited, but he was nowhere near sleep when he finally heard the door handle turn. And just like that, Oliver Queen's always returned to him with a "Hey".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two would never have happened without a wonderful comment and a suggestion I found in my inbox, so The Wait is dedicated to melicitysmoak. :)


End file.
